This is a superb story. Thanks to you and Swiatek.

The ridiculous information being put forth by the biz community regarding the Union Organizing legislation notwithstanding, this movement needs attention.

Few folks stand by common laborer-principles any more. I was raised in a union household. Every time there was a strike, or a layoff, my dad did picket duty and scrambled for additional outside work to feed and support us. At a young age, we understood the value in collective bargaining.

When Meijer came to town in the 90s, their stated goal, via some inept inside PR lackey, was to bust the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. They did. And in the process, rewrote the rules on grocery shopping in this city.

They placed pickets at their local stores for quite some time. Alas, the UFCW were busted. Shortly thereafter, Preston Safeway (mostly) went away.

I will never cross a picket line, and I still haven't been inside a Meijer.

I'd like to meet Mr. Selm. Norma Rae lives. Right on.

**UFCW was, not were

By the by, I've met Dale McCarty. Selm is better off away from that kind of negative crap.

Unions have become an expensive variation of the minimum wage law.

I know union 'workers' who do little work and make $65/hr or more for snoozing in their little corner of their plant waiting for a pager to go off.

It's no wonder so many jobs go overseas or over the border.

I her that lament often, John. Please illuminate. What specific kind of job pays $65 an hour for little work? At what employer, or type of employer?

There's two sides of every coin. I was a member of three unions, one for working at Preston Safeway as a kid, then the Musician's Union two times.

Then, when I worked at a major consumer electronics place in LA, the IBEW came in and tried to organize. The FUD that they created, and violence that they fomented, was hideous. My opinion of unionization is forever changed because of their boorish and plainly criminal/libelous tactics.

While I want to see people paid fair wages and dislike how Indiana law treats employees, there has to be a middle ground somewhere. Yes, I know there are really nasty employers (like those cited in the article) whose only fealty is to stockholders, and I know of others that are reasonable (altho they're probably in the small minority). You see the screw-offs (CWA, are you listening?) and you also see a lot of genuinely decent people working hard.

Like most things, the problem is universal solutions to uniquely individual problems, and how one size never fits all except the model. And she needed to gain weight anyway.

Employer? Rolls Royce. That $65 is some union-defined multiple of the base hourly pay for Sunday hours. A day when the job consists of doing nothing or nearly so because the rest of the facility is a ghost town.

It is worse than a lament, it is reality.

I'm with Hendy. It's difficult to really say 'pro-Union' or 'anti-Union' because you're being asked to make such a polarizing stance on the issue. You're either being asked to throw the baby out with the bathwater or drink the bathwater with your supper.

Some unions are worth their weight in gold, others aren't worth half their weight in dog c--p (as John Howard alluded to, though I won't go further because I don't want the mob knocking on my door.)


OSHA, Federal employment laws & standards, etc. have taken a bite out of the union card game, but would they have come into being were it not for the unions?

Prisons in Canada (Medium security) are better than Westin and Hyatt in Indianapolis.

Thanks, John Howard, and shame on Rolls Royce for putting up with it. But your example points out it is a rarity.

I had forgotten all about CWA, Hendy. A friend works there. She's been there since ATT was Indiana Bell. The company has decimated its customer service ranks, tol the point it's a joke. Ever try to talk to AT&T? here's what you'll usually get:

A guy named "Howard" in the Manilla, who has four answers from a card, to read to you. Whatever your question, his answer comes from that card. My AT&T friend says she wants to retire because of the stress of dealing with constantly-angry customers, but can't afford to until her last child gets out of college in three years.

She and her colleagues have used the CWA to complain, to no avail. And we consumers lost the ability to complain in Indiana two years ago, when telecoms were "deregulated" along with cable companies. The state cannot and will not step in.

AT&T, as well as Comcast, are customer service disasters. Both CWA companies. Which doesn't mean a damned thing if the company outsources the customer service functions to foreign lands.